


Sentinel

by chewysugar



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Castiel in the Bunker, Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, Observant Sam Winchester, Sam Ships It, Sam-Centric, longing looks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 12:02:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12080667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewysugar/pseuds/chewysugar
Summary: Sam sees more than most people realize. For instance, he can see the spectacular something that exists between his brother and his best friend.





	Sentinel

Among the many things he considers himself to be—fucked up chiefest among them—Sam is observant. He didn’t get into Stanford on good looks after all; it takes a lot of looking to make the grade. Hell, it takes a lot of looking to make it through a life spent hunting.

He might not be able to blow the head off a ghoul in the dark the way Dean can, but Sam can calculate the trajectory of the bullet based on a quick glance; he can usually sweep a room for the key piece of evidence in as much time as it takes for a police officer to go to the john. He’s combed through books and Internet articles with the same precision and accuracy as an open-heart surgeon.

If Dean knew just how observant his little brother is, he’d probably try to be more careful. Sam has had really nothing but Dean to look at since as long as he can remember; he knows when Dean is lying; knows by the slight tightening of Dean’s lips whenever he’s getting tired of tearing down the highway; he knows when Dean is in the mood to retire to his room or the shower to jerk off—can see it in his restless gestures and fidgeting.

Through this lens of silent observation, Sam has come to understand his brother possibly better than Dean understand himself—the excruciating vulnerability—that raw, red, soft underbelly that is Dean being hidden by a hard shell of caustic remarks and feigned disaffection. But like all weak spots, Dean’s isn’t as concealed as he’d like it to be, and it just so happens to take the form of a shy, but devastatingly handsome, angel.

Sam hasn’t had quite as long to watch Castiel—but then again there aren’t as many layers around Cas. It’s not that he’s an open book—Sam isn’t exactly sure that Cas is even aware that there _is_ a book to open, and through that—through the obliviousness to his own feelings--Castiel hides. But again, not well enough for Sam to be unawares.

The glances, the excuses to be in one another's personal space—the changes in the timbre of Dean’s voice when he says Cas’s name. It struck Sam like a hit from a blunt tire iron the first time he really listened to that shift in cadence: it was after his soul had been restored—after the Levithan’s and Cas’s return from Purgatory. Enjoying a rare moment of peace, Dean had been having a hearty laugh at an innocent comment that Castiel had made regarding the texture of mayonnaise.

His eyes had shone with something beyond mirth; his smile had been one of those rare, genuine displays of happiness. He’d given Cas a playful shove on the shoulder and said his name—a simple utterance—one single syllable, and it had hit Sam like a bolt of lightning.

“Cas.”

And the angel, shrugging off Dean’s touch, had grinned in return and said, “Dean,” like it was a holy word.

Sam has noticed every time afterwards—the lingering looks become more noticeable to him, until he practically dreams about them.

Sometimes it isn’t even the absence of the other that speaks volumes—whenever Dean isn’t around, Cas becomes restless, agitated; whenever the angel happens to be absent, Dean gets sullen and sulky to the point of grunting out his responses.

As much as he sees, as much as he hears and observes, Sam can’t speak. It’s pointless—Dean is so steeped in denial that to approach open confrontation would get Sam a black eye. As for Castiel, Sam doesn’t really take a shine to the idea of getting on the sensitive side of a Fallen Angel.

So he carries on, watching without really meaning to—a not entirely unwilling participant in this dance of gravity and shooting stars between his brother and his friend.

After another stretch of endless weeks where everything is nightmares and darkness and the end of the world, Sam is having a hell of a time getting to sleep. Every time he feels himself drifting off—every time his mind slips towards the precipice of silent lucidity, he’s jolted awake, his heart racing and his thoughts ricocheting around his skull.

He needs to stretch his legs—to get out of tangled sheets and the smell of his own sweat and just calm down.

The Bunker is silent and dark—Dean turned in hours ago, and Cas likely did the same. Whenever their home is like this—bathed in shadows and stillness—it makes Sam think of the library back at Stanford—the one place he found refuge before he met Jess.

On bare feet, he walks across the dark floor towards the kitchen.

Constantly vigilant, Sam’s senses alert him to the sounds from the kitchen when he’s only a few steps away from the door. Dean’s not asleep after all, the rock salt-and- warm honey of his voice low. Sam can’t discern his words really—but again, it’s the intonation that says what the incomprehensible words can’t.

Sam freezes, with that same feeling of being struck by something powerful and electric.

He’s never heard Dean talk like this before, not entirely--all that soft vulnerability laying naked as he speaks. Whatever it is that he’s saying is coming from that heart of his that still refuses to give in even after being so cruelly scarred and ripped to shreds. He sounds almost scared—but Dean’s never let something as trivial as fear stop him before.

Bidden by curiosity, Sam quietly inches towards the kitchen door. His back flush with the wall, he peers cautiously around the corner.

There’s only the range light on, the gentle orange glow just enough to bathe the two people sitting at the kitchen able in visibility.

Sam’s breath catches in his throat.

It’s not because Dean and Castiel are sitting at the table in their pajamas—Dean in a faded gray _Ramones_ tank and sweats and Cas in a plain t-shirt and boxers.

Nor is it due to the raw defenselessness on his older brother’s face.

It isn’t even because Castiel is staring at Dean like he can’t believe what he’s hearing—as if he’s never seen or heard anything so mesmerizing in his entire life.

It’s because Dean has his fingers laced through Cas’s, right there on the table for the shadows and light in the kitchen to see. Dean’s clever, calloused fingers twined through Castiel’s soft, graceful, slender ones—the pad of Dean’s thumb is massaging smooth, calming circles against the back of Castiel’s knuckle.

Suddenly Sam feels as if he’s doing something perverse—sacrilegious. It’s so incongruous, given that he’s always been looking without meaning to at times—but this one time when he’s using his eyes and ears intentionally, he feels as if he's never wanted to be rendered blind and deaf more.

Dean chokes on a word.

Cas draws closer, his chair scraping against the kitchen floor. When he speaks, his voice is just as off-putting to Sam as Dean’s was—it’s soft as a feather, kind as the light of a clear winter’s day. He’s speaking encouragingly, but Sam can detect the fear—the need.

Dean’s eyes meet the angel’s for a second that lasts an infinity.

Sam knows what’s going to happen before it does, but he lingers just long enough to make sure that it does—to prove that this isn’t a dream.

Dean always does the important things carefully—at complete odds with his usual passionate impulsivity. He may be famous along both coastlines for his sexual prowess, but Sam knows that the few women who really had Dean’s heart would tell of gentle, careful lovemaking.

But this isn’t those women; this is Castiel, who braved Hell and more for Dean.

Dean cups Castiel’s face with his free hand; he closes the space between them; Cas draws back, not out of disgust—out of that same fear that something will ruin this thing that he needs more than heavenly grace. Dean’s forehead presses against Cas’s, and Sam can read the word on Dean’s lips through the distance and shadows.

“Please…”

His breath shuddering, Cas crushes trembling lips against Dean’s.

Sam turns away at that moment, all but collapsing against the wall. His lungs fill with air; he wasn’t aware that he’d been holding his breath. His whole being fills with a sudden lightness—a profound joy so alien to him that it’s almost startling.

Even for the three of them, so torn and scarred from the cruel blades of the life they lead, happiness is possible. And as far as he’s concerned, Dean deserves it, and deserves it with Castiel.

As he walks quietly back to his room, Sam grins to himself.

Perhaps his brother and Cas weren’t so unobservant as he thought.  

**Author's Note:**

> I've been a little out of it lately. I'm still plugging along with the next chapter of Touch of God, but I really wanted to write this cute little plot bunny.


End file.
